The faucet is trickling, but it’s still pumping water.

So far, the hardest thing about having finished a novel is getting to the fourth edit and knowing that it needs a thorough re-write. Not a full re-write per se, but it needs more.

This has happened a lot for me, particularly because I used to write fast and by the thousands. I could spit out pages like a broken copier machine unable to contain itself. That was before I went and studied writing, when I had more freedom with what I threw down on the page. My degree came not without refinement, however I found it much harder to write and the days where I churned out pages with a giddiness became few and far between. Quantity over quality had reversed; but it unfortunately became harder.

The current piece I’m working up to a re-write on (we’ll call it Project Rosemary) I wrote in the middle of my degree and so there are still a lot of those fun and fearless areas. 60,000 words I spat out in about six weeks for a 5,000 word assessment task. I have a habit of getting carried away (⌒_⌒;). It actually was one of my greatest weaknesses at uni. Yay! A lot of words! But that equated to a lot of refinement, and as I’ve continued to mature, it means that I can see more where it lacks substance. Which is not a bad thing! Not at all.

It can feel a little discouraging that even after editing so many times, I’m presented with hills that seem to keep growing … and walking uphill is not my favourite (＞﹏＜)

But, recently, I’ve developed more courage and confidence in things that I love to do, really starting to get over my heavy issue of “just doing it”. Going “just do it”, doesn’t quite help, but what I’m really getting better as is ditching the idea that it needs to be perfect or close in the first go. Ironically, I don’t believe in perfection and I think anything and everything will always need some kind of improvement in the eyes of others, but the fear of starting and failing is always there. Perhaps it’s even self-sabotage, “can’t do a bad job if I don’t do it” but we can probably dissect it for another thousand pages so I’ll snip the page there (￣～￣;)

I’m trying to convince myself at the moment that it’s okay to returning to having fun with writing. Even the sections of Project Marigold that were re-written after my degree still need to be improved. I became more careful in my writing and more worried about the quality of it and it just kinda sucked the fun out of it. I need to find a way to enjoy writing and letting it flow freely, whilst knowing that I can come back and refine it later.

Perhaps it’s needing to edit that tells us “it’s not good enough and won’t ever be”. But I think I’m starting to understand the opposite. The more I edit, the more I find ways to improve it, the more I have grown as a self-editor („• ֊ •„)੭

Reconnecting with my spirit has made me feel more free to indulge myself, and I’m planning to leak that back into writing as much as possible, and it’s a great time to do it. Happy Beltane, may this spring bring a refreshing growth for everyone.